The right to vote or not to vote..

[°Leprechaun]

We have a secret ballot. Whether or not someone votes is their own business.
It should be easy to vote and if someone doesn't like the choices why should they vote?
I like what they have in Nevada. If I lived in Nevada I would have the "none of these candidates" option.
Whether voting should be mandatory is an interesting issue, but many don't vote because
it is not mandatory. Why don't people vote? Why should they? Nobody should tell me
how to vote or whether to vote and whether I vote or how I vote is nobody's business.

Do you think third parties should be legal?   
"More voices, more choices" should be the motto of USA's politics, not "the lesser of two evils"
Vote your conscience if you vote at all.

comments?

[Kingpoleon]

I know a former Petersen supporter now supporting Johnson as "the least of three evils". He doesn't understand compromise very well.

[°Leprechaun]

I know a former Petersen supporter now supporting Johnson as "the least of three evils". He doesn't understand compromise very well.

I would prefer that Stein and Johnson were the choices over what we have now.
I'd go for Stein, of course.

[Virginiá]

I know people don't like being told what they should or shouldn't do, and so my statements below will probably not be that popular, but I'll go ahead anyway:

We have a secret ballot. Whether or not someone votes is their own business.
It should be easy to vote and if someone doesn't like the choices why should they vote?

Because at the end of the day, people should think of their country and not if they personally like that person or not. Regardless if they like it or not, someone will get elected president in November and it's a extremely high likelihood that it will be R or D. If a 3rd party is possible, it will show in the polls. If a 3rd party you like has a real chance and their candidate is competent / qualified, you should vote for them for sure. If they have no chance, you're just wasting a vote. With this in mind, people should vote both on who is running on policies that most closely match their own and have the best chance of winning. That's what we are voting for, right? We all want the country going in a certain direction I would imagine, and we aren't just voting for a candidate because they crack funny jokes or may look photogenic in the oval office.

I get why some Democrat-leaning people may not want to support, say, Clinton. If they think she is corrupt, then they think to themselves: "I can't support a corrupt politician! I'll stay home!" Well, guess what, Trump is even worse and you staying home only helps the opposition install a reckless, unstable and unqualified buffoon as the leader of our country. So I ask, how does staying home help anything? What does it accomplish? Maybe it makes the person doing it feel better that they didn't "cave", but that doesn't help their country at all. There are real issues at stake here. A Republican federal trifecta will have serious consequences for this country. Trump will be filling SCOTUS seats. So again, I ask, how does staying home help anything? You may feel good about it for some reason, but all you did was help push the country in a worse direction (from a Democratic perspective)

Folks need to understand that this is bigger than them. If we get 2 bad candidates, one should pick the least terrible candidate. It's going to be one of those two, so why help the worst one get elected? It doesn't even make a freakin sense unless you think about it from a selfish perspective. There are a lot of people in this country that will legitimately be affected, some severely, if things like PPACA are repealed or labor rights weakened. And frankly, anyone who cares about overturning CU should know that Clinton is their only hope, and she has every reason to appoint liberal justices who will overturn CU. One really has no standing to complain about special interests corrupting elections with campaign donations if they stay home or vote in a way that hurts her. She is the only option that has a chance of winning. I think this idea applies to numerous other things. I'm not trying to bully here - It's just a cold, hard fact.

Whether voting should be mandatory is an interesting issue, but many don't vote because
it is not mandatory. Why don't people vote? Why should they? Nobody should tell me
how to vote or whether to vote and whether I vote or how I vote is nobody's business.

I've always seen this as such an American thing to say. Yes, it would be bad if you were forced into a booth and forced to vote a certain way. But being required to cast some sort of vote is not such a bad thing. I support mandatory voting in the sense that people should be required to show up and cast a ballot, even if it's empty. I think people take for granted our elections and institutions. Sure, they are far from perfect but compared to the world in general, citizens have the chance at legitimate input and squander it because they are lazy, apathetic or even spiteful.

I wish mandatory voting wasn't even a topic of conversation, like, ever. But here we are, millions and millions and millions of people who don't participate for various reasons. What happened to a sense of civic duty? The desire to make your voice heard? The elections don't stop just because you lost faith or never even had interest to begin with. By not voting, you cede more and more power to the most motivated and often, the most radical voters we have.

You know how many times in my life I have heard people bitching about our government or policy, only to comment at some point that they don't vote, or even worse, voted for someone who goes against everything they said they stood for? We need more participation and more informed voters.

"More voices, more choices" should be the motto of USA's politics, not "the lesser of two evils"
Vote your conscience if you vote at all.

Of course we should have more choices and more voices. Sometimes we get stuck in a situation where it is in fact the lesser of two evils, but it is what it is. People volunteered and supported candidates in the primaries that they actually liked and it simply did not work in this time. That is no reason to stay home or throw away a vote. As I said before, the election is not going to get cancelled just because you hate both nominees. One of these two are going to be president and people should work towards getting the least terrible (in their eyes) candidate into office. Maybe you get shafted this time, but you work towards getting the governing coalition you want, step by step.


If you want my perspective on this election, then this is how I see it:
----
Do I wish it was someone other than Clinton? Yes, but this election is too important to waste a vote or stay home on (not that I ever would).

We (Democrats/liberals) are so close to building a left-leaning federal judiciary for the first time in generations. The USSC has been mostly conservative since the 70s, and we finally have a very rare chance to reshape the court and stop the deluge of erroneous and harmful decisions (CU, Shelby, McCutcheon, and so on). We will likely not get another chance to overturn any of those for decades if a Republican/Trump wins in November. He will fill Scalia's seat with a conservative who will surely be pro-CU, and if Kennedy resigns or passes away during his tenure, which is likely, there goes any chance at a left-leaning SCOTUS majority for decades. CU will stay and elections will be even more corrupted as time goes on.

Winning 3 terms in a row, along with Bill's 2 terms previously gives us an rare chance to leave a lasting liberal federal judiciary that will not help destroy our elections by gutting voting rights or allowing unlimited money into elections. This isn't like Congress where we have constant elections. Federal judges have lifetime appointments and so to leave a lasting impact, we need to hold on just a bit longer.

Further, even if Clinton isn't able to deliver on many of her proposals for whatever reasons, at least we can prevent a torrent of right-wing policy from being implemented. Eventually, we will retake Congress, and holding onto the White House until then will prevent Republicans from rolling back the limited progress we have made.


(Obviously when I say 'we' I mean Democrats or other liberal voters)

[°Leprechaun]

Thanks for your input Virginia. I appreciate that you were willing to express your opinions without bringing in undue emotion or personal attacks. We need more discussions that focus on logical ideas rather than conflict and negativity.

[°Leprechaun]

As far as the specifics of what you said, I do wish more people cared enough to make changes.
I know that you don't agree with me and I am not supporting everything about Sanders strategy or everything he has done and may continue to do, but his candidacy was about giving people an opportunity to express their voice for changes in the status quo.

I think healthy discussion of differences is important, and it is unfortunate that elections have been and continue to so ugly with hitting below the belt and nasty gossip as well as focusing more on silly stories and soap opera like stories merely to get headlines.

I think that unfortunately Trump has exploited the anger of many people. Anger is ok if it's channeled into motivation to do what's right and best for everyone.

[°Leprechaun]

I wish the public financing of elections worked better, by the way. It was a response to corruption of soft money, but unfortunately it hasn't worked very well.

[Virginiá]

I wish the public financing of elections worked better, by the way. It was a response to corruption of soft money, but unfortunately it hasn't worked very well.

Ideally, the only way to finance a campaign should be public financing. Enact significant limits on outside groups and reinstate the ban on advertising by outside groups 60 days prior to an election, which was gutted by Citizens United. Even the most robust public financing system is useless if you allow unlimited outside spending, as that just shifts the money race to Super PACs and secret money groups meant for billionaires to influence elections 501(c) "social welfare" groups. Public financing for presidential elections is useless now because candidates simply need more money to win.

Also feel obligated to state that in my novella of a post above, 'you' was a general term, not 'you' as in you, lol. This issue is particularly important to me so I can get feisty!

[Goldwater]

I wish mandatory voting wasn't even a topic of conversation, like, ever. But here we are, millions and millions and millions of people who don't participate for various reasons. What happened to a sense of civic duty? The desire to make your voice heard? The elections don't stop just because you lost faith or never even had interest to begin with. By not voting, you cede more and more power to the most motivated and often, the most radical voters we have.

The thing is, unfortunately, there are some people out there who literally couldn't care less about politics. Those types of people aren't even going to bother trying to educate themselves, even if voting is mandatory, and IMO those people not voting is preferable to them making an uninformed vote.

[Anna Komnene]

I believe that everyone should always follow their heart, no matter what.  The problem with the "lesser of two evils" argument is basically the same thing as the collective action dilemma.  When we assume that taking action on large problems is useless and don't take action, everyone else is making that assumption too, and the problem never gets solved.  It's the basic problem for environmental conservation, social mobilization, and also voting.  I could look at the polls and see that third parties have no support, then decide to throw my vote to whoever I think is the least bad, but if I do that, and if everyone does that, the person or the party that I think is best will never win.  Ever.  That kind of thinking puts us in a situation where nothing ever changes because we don't give change a chance.

Political parties really only have any worth in the sense that they express a set of values that people can throw their support behind.  The problem with big tent parties is that they subsume so many issues into their umbrella, that only a small percent of them actually get attention.  I voted for Obama twice in both 2008 and 2012.  I listened to him give really inspiring speeches about how we were going to bring change and fix all kinds of problems that were really important to me like climate change and immigration.  In the meantime, I've watched him squander his political capital on a poorly conceived healthcare bill that nobody liked, not even its supporters, spawn a huge backlash and a tea party movement that killed the huge majorities the party obtained, and then not really do much of anything on the issues that I care about the most.  Yeah, I think Obama has been much better than McCain or Romney, but that doesn't mean there weren't other people or parties that might have been better if they were given the chance.

I'm also a big supporter of electoral reform, something that has very little chance of happening as long as the two major parties are the only ones allowed to contribute to the policy agenda.  IRV would be a great way to allow people to vote for their favorite candidates, while ensuring that their least favorite candidates don't have as much of a chance of being elected as a result.  Do we hear either party talking about it?  Nope.  Neither party has incentive to change the way things are because opening things up to new parties and inspiring more people to vote doesn't help them.  They benefit from the system being exactly the way it is.  They are career politicians that care more about being elected than helping people, and we would do well to treat them as such.  To be honest, the same goes for expansive campaign finance reform.  I'm extremely skeptical that the Democrats are that much more likely than Republicans to do anything on that front.  Safe Democrats are just as vulnerable to the consequences of that as safe Republicans, and they are well aware of that.

Even if the Greens, Libertarians, Conservatives, Peace and Freedom, or whoever don't have any chance to win, they can still contribute to what issues are most important to people and what issues get the most coverage in the media.  However, the only way they can do that is if enough people support them.  With enough support, third party candidates could make their way into the nationally televised debates, and that free media platform would give them the opportunity to express support for solutions on electoral reform, campaign finance, and a myriad of other issues that would never be addressed adequately or at all by Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.  There's actually a long history of third parties serving this function in American history.  The populists and socialists helped new issues get onto the agenda in the early 1900s that wouldn't have even been discussed otherwise.  Just because they didn't elect any presidents or powerful legislators, doesn't mean they didn't accomplish anything.  People in Congress care about being reelected, so the best way to make sure that issues get solved is for people to mobilize and advocate for them, rather than sit back and expect the politicians to do it for them.

I have voted for Greens, Democrats, and even the occasional Republican, but I'm tired of Democrats suggesting that I'm somehow ruining the country because I want to vote for the candidate or the party that I think is best.  Third parties and people that support them want this country to be a better place just as much as anyone else.

[Intell]

Voting should be mandatory with a spoiled ballot, NOTA, or write-in option.

[Virginiá]

Even if the Greens, Libertarians, Conservatives, Peace and Freedom, or whoever don't have any chance to win, they can still contribute to what issues are most important to people and what issues get the most coverage in the media.  However, the only way they can do that is if enough people support them.  With enough support, third party candidates could make their way into the nationally televised debates, and that free media platform would give them the opportunity to express support for solutions on electoral reform, campaign finance, and a myriad of other issues that would never be addressed adequately or at all by Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.  There's actually a long history of third parties serving this function in American history.  The populists and socialists helped new issues get onto the agenda in the early 1900s that wouldn't have even been discussed otherwise.  Just because they didn't elect any presidents or powerful legislators, doesn't mean they didn't accomplish anything.  People in Congress care about being reelected, so the best way to make sure that issues get solved is for people to mobilize and advocate for them, rather than sit back and expect the politicians to do it for them.

I don't think our system is really capable of supporting 3rd parties. If neither party gets 270, then the House picks the president out of the 3 and that presents a deeply unfair situation where whichever party controls the House will try to subvert the will of the people if their party's candidate did not get the most votes. I'm not saying this will always happen, but the fact that it would be a much more probable situation means that our system is not sufficient at all for more than 2 parties. It needs to be changed, as you said.

I'd just like to add that it could be useful to look at lesser-of-two-evils-voting like looking for a better job while you're still employed. Yes, work your butt off during the primaries to get a good candidate nominated, and if that doesn't work, cast a vote for the lesser of the two evils while groups work beyond the election to create a more favorable outcome the next time around.

Either way, sitting it out or wasting votes is counterproductive imo.

[RaphaelDLG]

I wish mandatory voting wasn't even a topic of conversation, like, ever. But here we are, millions and millions and millions of people who don't participate for various reasons. What happened to a sense of civic duty? The desire to make your voice heard? The elections don't stop just because you lost faith or never even had interest to begin with. By not voting, you cede more and more power to the most motivated and often, the most radical voters we have.

The thing is, unfortunately, there are some people out there who literally couldn't care less about politics. Those types of people aren't even going to bother trying to educate themselves, even if voting is mandatory, and IMO those people not voting is preferable to them making an uninformed vote.

My hope was that, by forcing a pattern of consistent participation, gradually people will become more familiar, more informed, more confident with the democratic process.  Rousseau would say that in order to find the true general will/common good, everybody's voice must be heard.

I'm going to go put on my John Lennon glasses and sing "Imagine" now.

[Goldwater]

I wish mandatory voting wasn't even a topic of conversation, like, ever. But here we are, millions and millions and millions of people who don't participate for various reasons. What happened to a sense of civic duty? The desire to make your voice heard? The elections don't stop just because you lost faith or never even had interest to begin with. By not voting, you cede more and more power to the most motivated and often, the most radical voters we have.

The thing is, unfortunately, there are some people out there who literally couldn't care less about politics. Those types of people aren't even going to bother trying to educate themselves, even if voting is mandatory, and IMO those people not voting is preferable to them making an uninformed vote.

My hope was that, by forcing a pattern of consistent participation, gradually people will become more familiar, more informed, more confident with the democratic process.  Rousseau would say that in order to find the true general will/common good, everybody's voice must be heard.

I'm going to go put on my John Lennon glasses and sing "Imagine" now.

Perhaps you're right, though I remain skeptical. I guess you just have more faith in people than I do.

[°Leprechaun]

I wish the public financing of elections worked better, by the way. It was a response to corruption of soft money, but unfortunately it hasn't worked very well.

Ideally, the only way to finance a campaign should be public financing. Enact significant limits on outside groups and reinstate the ban on advertising by outside groups 60 days prior to an election, which was gutted by Citizens United. Even the most robust public financing system is useless if you allow unlimited outside spending, as that just shifts the money race to Super PACs and secret money groups meant for billionaires to influence elections 501(c) "social welfare" groups. Public financing for presidential elections is useless now because candidates simply need more money to win.

Also feel obligated to state that in my novella of a post above, 'you' was a general term, not 'you' as in you, lol. This issue is particularly important to me so I can get feisty!

Thanks for the clarification, although I didn't take anything you said personally.